Trinity Murder
by Paradise
Rated NC-17

Chapter 1
Sonny’s Penthouse
1996

     The room was dark, no lights on. There was nothing to celebrate, nothing to speak about. She sat in the chair, leaning over, her elbows on her knees. She held a tissue loosely in her hand, her white blonde hair glistening like the edge of a knife in the dim light.
      “You need to get some sleep, Laura,” he said, facing outside over the balcony.
      “Is that your way of asking me to leave? No, Sonny. I’m not leaving until I get some answers. Was that phone call you were just on, that hit, was that for Helena?”
     He looked over to the other side of the room where she sat, her eyes brightened from her tears.
      “You’re a trusted friend, Laura. You know my life and you agreed to be a part of my life along with Luke. Now that Luke’s gone, I swear to you I will take care of you and your little girl. But you need to stop asking questions you don’t want the answers to.”
     Laura slowly stood up, inhaling. “Oh I want the answer to this, Sonny,” she said in a deep, smooth voice. “Do you think a cold, distant, smug answer will make me obey you and be quiet like I’m one of your workers? You will lose me forever as a friend and I swear to you I will make you pay if you murder Helena, so it’s your choice now answer the question.”
     He didn’t answer, he just walked over to the liquor and poured himself a glass. Laura stood there, helpless and in grief.
      “Sonny, I need you to acknowledge me and what I’m saying. I need you to know that yes, Helena took something from you because you helped me, but that woman took two years of my life, she kept one of my sons from me, she murdered the other one along with his father, my husband, your friend. If you kill her, and take that away from me, protect me from her, I will not be able to find my own closure in this and I am begging you please, don’t kill her. Allow me that much, please. Please call whoever it was you were giving orders to and tell them not to kill her but to hold her, and then let me take her life-“
      “No. No, it’s too dangerous for you-“
      “Don’t do that!” she shouted at him through her tears. “Don’t make me out to be weak, Sonny! This is my revenge! She took Brenda because you and she were helping me! This is about Helena and me!”
      “It’s too risky for you!” he shouted back. “Luke wanted me to take care of you and I’m doing that! Helena Cassadine will be taken care of so you and your little girl are safe! Understand?”
     Tears grew in Laura’s eyes as she stared into the angry face of this man.
      “I understand you perfectly Sonny. I know that you’re a gangster-“
      “Don’t call me that!”
      “Then DON’T act like it and take this from me! Do not kill Helena like she’s nothing when I have to do this, I HAVE to see her and I have to find some closure in all that the Cassadines have done to me the past fifteen years!”
     Sonny sighed, irritated.
      “Laura look I—I only want what’s best for you-“
      “No! NO! That’s not true, you want what is easy for you! You want to eliminate Helena because she eliminated Luke and Brenda.”
      “Luke was my best friend,” he said bitterly.
      “I know that. But this is about something Luke and I started a long time ago-“       “He would want me to keep you away from her-“
      “Stop it! Would you give me one reason why you won’t hold her and let me-“
      “Because she crossed the line! Because she took things that didn’t belong to her. Because my best friend, the woman I loved, and your son are now gone while she believes she’s won, well she hasn’t. This will no longer be a game to her, Laura. Because no one takes what’s mine.”
     The tears spilled over her eyelids and down her cheeks and she laughed bitterly. She walked towards the front door and flipped the light switch.
      “Why are you doing that?” Sonny asked.
      “Because I wanna see you as I tell you this. You think this is as much of a game as Helena does, Sonny. And you can give me every self-righteous piece of garbage you’ve got to try to convince me what you’re doing is right and you know what, maybe it is, but if you care about me, if you ever cared about me you will listen to me. You will treat me like an equal and show me that I matter to you more than your version of revenge. Sonny if you-“ Laura broke then, swallowing a sob and covering her mouth with her hand as she found the strength again to speak. “If you…do this, if you kill Helena I will see you the way everyone else sees you, the way everyone WARNED me to see you. You will be nothing in my eyes but a murdering coward who doesn’t want to protect me or take care of me and my little girl, but that you want to rid the world of anyone who would stand up to you and dare to take what’s yours. Sonny you’re making this like a chess game. Brenda was your queen so now you’re going to take down the king.”
      “What do you want me to do, let her go?”
      “I want you to be better than your step-father. I want you to care about someone and respect them enough to not take what’s easiest for you.”
     Laura walked over to him, tears in her eyes, and he had never thought she was more beautiful than she was right now. When she took his hand he felt a jolt of something, something inside him, something full of pain and full of strength. Her pleading eyes tore into him.
      “Call off the hit, Sonny please.”
     He stared blankly at her and her heart could not have hated him more at that moment. Tears pooled in her eyes and he saw his reflection in them.
      “Sonny, do I mean anything to you? Does it mean nothing to you that I am begging you not to do this and that if you do I will be gone forever?”
     When he said nothing she closed her eyes and hated herself for her own stupidity.
      “You know I thought you were just like Frank Smith. A cold hearted, cowardly monster who sucks people in with charm and this so called honor you like to tell people you have but Luke told me you were different and I believed him. I believed in you. I thought we meant something to you—I thought that I meant something to you-“
      “You do, I will take care of you-“
      “I don’t want to be taken care of, I want you to show you me you care about me by not murdering Helena.”
      “Everyone dies, Laura, it’s just a matter of when.”
      “And how and why,” Laura replied. She shook her head. “God everyone warned me, everyone told me how fake you were and how you use people. How nothing is more important to you than being important yourself but I thought you could really…love. I believed you loved Brenda more than anything else-“
      “Don’t you EVER doubt my love for Brenda!” he shouted at her.
     Laura turned away from him, a hand on her stomach. She felt lightheaded from how much she had cried.
      “Were you lying to me?” she asked him. “When you told me what Scully had done to you, what your father had done to you and what your life had been like, and how you got me to trust you enough to tell you things I never told anyone but Luke and my mother, and you got me to put all my faith into you and place myself in your care with my daughter…Sonny was I really that stupid? Did you ever really care about me? Did you ever care enough to look beyond what someone had done to you and look at what they had done to me? Are you capable of seeing someone else’s pain might just be as extreme as yours? You know you’re not the only one who lost something here. You’re not the only one who is suffering inside. Whose body aches and with every breath sharp little knifes stab into your heart, you’re not the only one. I am standing right here, in as much pain as you’re in and maybe even more because if I don’t have you, I don’t have anyone. And everything I believed in is gone. Is just ending her life because she dared to touch your property worth losing me? Sonny, tell me what I mean to you.”
     His eyes turned soft then, looking at her with desperation. He walked towards her, and she could see fresh tears in his dark eyes.
      “I care about you, Laura,” he whispered. “I value you and I see you.”
     She shook her head, not believing him. She glowed in the light and he saw the light surrounding her fading. She was fading from his life with every word he said.
      “I don’t think you do,” she whispered in a broken voice. “I have put everything I am and everything I believe in into your hands and you CANNOT do this to me! You cannot take my closure and my pain and turn it into something that is ONLY about you and what YOU lost! Yes I know Brenda is dead because of me! Because you tried to help me but I have lost my first CHILD’S entire life, my second son, and my husband along with everything I owned and had inside my soul and you will not dismiss it like it means nothing!”
     Laura’s strength cracked then as she sobbed, covering her face with her hands. He walked over to her and tried to embrace her but she pushed him away.
      “That’s all I was to you! I was a partner in ending the entire Frank Smith charade and now I am an obligation. Now what I am to you is a promise you made to someone who is now dead.”
      “Laura you know…you know what I do, how I’ve lived. You know me and you know that there are things in life that I have to do that it’s better if you don’t know about. And I know this is hard but I need you, Laura. I need you. I’m not about to let you go or let anything happen to you. I care about you and I need you safe. I need you…with me.”
     With teary eyes and trembling lips she spoke.
      “Then stop it. Call it off. I’m not asking for that much I’m just asking for time. Time for me to see her once more. Please Sonny, if you need me, you’ll do this. Put your own anger aside and put mine first, please.”
      “Laura you’re not understanding something. The business that I’m in…if I’ve been disrespected and I don’t show that I do not tolerate it, I will be seen as weak.”
      “So your reputation as a mobster is more important to you than me.”
     He turned away, not knowing how to answer that. He couldn’t. Despite his better judgment he walked over to the phone and made a call. She couldn’t hear what he was saying but prayed he was doing what she asked of him. When he turned back to her, she knew he had.
      “Thank you,” she exhaled.
     He had a different look in his eyes. He reached for her hand and she took it. He led her upstairs and she followed.
      “Sit down on the bed,” he said softly and she did, reaching for another tissue as more tears of grief rolled down her face.
     Sonny went into the bathroom and Laura looked around his very masculinely decorated room. But it was empty, everything was empty. Nothing moved, nothing breathed. Her nose was stuffy from her crying and she blew into the Kleenex, her nose hurting from dry skin. She’d been crying off and on straight for three days. The room was dark, there was no need for any light, there was nothing left Laura wanted to see. Sonny came out of the bathroom with a warm washcloth. He sat down on the bed beside Laura.
      “Lean your head back, let me wipe the tear stains from your face.”
     His soft hand cupped her classically beautiful face and she sucked in a breath at the ripple that traveled through her body at his touch. She felt the warm, wet wash cloth against her face and felt her skin loosening with the loss of the mascara that dried and tightened her glowing skin. She looked up at the ceiling, the fan spinning, and she saw time. Time that was dead…dead to her and dead Sonny. She wasn’t even sure she had enough strength to want to kill Helena. Maybe she should’ve just let Sonny eliminate her so she could never harm another person. These thoughts flowed through Laura’s mind and she didn’t even realize she was crying.
      “Laura,” Sonny whispered. “Stop crying.”
      “I can’t,” she said, her eyes meeting his, the tears flowing steadily. “Sonny I want to die. There’s nothing left inside me.”
      “It’ll get better,” he promised, washing her face off, her thick lashes containing beads of moisture.
      “No it won’t,” she said, grabbing his shirt. “It won’t get better! It’s not gonna get better because three people I loved more than anything are dead. I almost went to pieces the last time I thought Luke was dead…”
      “What saved you the last time?”
      “Stefan Cassadine, believe it or not.”
      “Stavros’s brother?”
      “Yeah, and I know after Helena’s gone I can find him and my son again.”
     Sonny couldn’t believe Laura didn’t already know, couldn’t believe she hadn’t been told. But now, now of all times, how could he lay more burden on her, more pain.
      “What?” she asked terrified, reading his thoughts. “What? Did…did something happen to my son or Stefan? Sonny…Sonny tell me now-“
      “Laura,” he said, gripping her arms.
     She began to panic and gripped his shoulders. “Oh my God, it’s bad. What happened? Sonny trust me you’ve got to tell me right now-“
      “Laura! Stefan Cassadine is dead, and no one has scene Nikolas in over two years. I checked that out several months ago but I thought you knew.”
     Laura, holding his shirt so tightly in his hands her knuckles were white, instead of bursting into tears she laughed. Laughed sadly, sarcastically, bitterly as the tears came again, this time hard, full, and salty. She kept laughing, she laughed and let go of Sonny’s shirt, lying back on the bed, covering her eyes with her hand.
      “She killed them. So it’s not a trinity murder,” she laughed. “That’s five people I loved. God don’t you see…” she laughed. “I was in love with Stefan, he might’ve been the father to my first son. I’ll never know. I’ll never see my first son grownup and I’ll never see the man I—the ONLY man I ever shared everything I owned inside me with than Luke. Helena killed Stefan, her own son, the son she hated, because of me. Because she knew he loved me and that I loved him.”
      “You uh…you loved a Cassadine?” Sonny asked, a little surprised.
      “Yeah!” she laughed, and Sonny was fearful of her, she was acting a little crazy. “Yes I was in love with one Cassadine, married to the other, I hated the man I was married to. But Stefan was the man I loved when I thought I could never love again. And now he’s dead, along with my baby, who would’ve been sixteen years old now but he’s dead! My first born child, my baby, the baby I left behind is dead-“
      “We don’t know if he’s dead-“
      “Well trust me, if he was Stefan’s, Helena’s killed him, and if he was Stavros’s she would’ve worshipped him, so you take a guess at why he’s been missing and no one can find him. Helena would’ve found him by now which means that that baby was conceived in love but murdered because of that love and I have lost more than I ever thought I’d have because of that…”
      “Laura, shh. Laura it’ll get better-“
      “Sonny don’t preach to me. There is nothing to live for.”
     He grabbed her up off the bed and shook her.
      “Yes there is! You had a child! Children are the most precious things you’ll ever have. Take the love that you have for Nikolas and for Lucky and give it to Lesley Lu who needs it, who needs you! You’re strong Laura-“
      “But I’m not!” she cried. “Not anymore.” Then she calmed down and spoke smoothly and painfully to him as he wiped each tear that fell away, but the tears fell too fast and he had to give up. “Sonny I’m not. Give me vodka and let me drink myself into unconsciousness.”
     He obeyed. He got up and fixed her a glass. She obeyed his nightstand drawer and found a photograph of her…with Nikolas. The first time she’d let Stefan hold him, that day in her bedroom. That was from then! She pulled it out and caressed the image with her fingers, then began to hyperventilate.
      “Laura!” Sonny screamed as he rushed over to her, catching her before she fell to the floor. “Laura here, drink this,” he said, forcing the glass to her lips. “Drink it,” he told her. “It’ll help with the pain.”
     She obeyed and drank it like it was saving her life. She let it burn through her system, and he gave her another drink, as well as himself. Together they slowly drank their way into numbness. She was so dazed already she felt drunk by the second one but kept drinking until she felt nothing. Sonny sat with her on the bed, holding her up.
      “Sonny, look what I did to your shirt,” she said. “Take it off,” she said, unbuttoning it. “I’ll get you another one.”
     She peeled the shirt off his beautiful torso and for the first time noticed his tattoo.
      “Sonny I didn’t know you had a tattoo, let me see it,” she said, pulling his arm closer.
      “No,” he said, pulling back.
      “What?” she asked. “What, lemme see it-“
      “Laura stop it!” he said, pulling back.
      “So that’s it,” she decided sadly. “That’s it for me.”
      “No, Laura,” he said, stroking her face. “It’s not over for you.”
      “You lose two children in a day and two women you loved and then tell me to live. Let go of me,” she said through clenched teeth.
     He doesn’t move at all, he’s daring her to try anything. She can read his face as pure as she could read a page of a book. His face is telling her he will never let her go, that he doesn’t want to hurt her but he will if she dares to try to leave his grasp. She accepts the dare and stands up. He stands up with her and slams her back down on the bed, and anger flows up inside her. She pulls a self-defense maneuver but the booze has blocked her clear vision and she loses the battle, and he’s on top of her, his body blocking any movement on her part. When she struggles he moves over her, pinning her down with his legs, raising her arms over her head. His head lies just above her left shoulder, his harsh breaths against her ear.
     Covered and completely immobilized, she begins to cry. All the anger disappears and she’s left with what’s beneath…pain. He raises above her, seeing it, biting back the bile in his throat at the pain of his own loss and knows that the only way to ease his pain in this very moment is to find a way to feed off of her strength, and maybe if he can give her some of his.
     Suddenly she’s crying, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” and he cannot stand to hear it again, so swooping down he takes her lips with his, releases his hold on her arms and slides his hands beneath her back, pulling her up against him, his mouth crashing against hers in the desperate seek of escape.
     Practically ripping he undid the buttons to her white sundress and lifted it off of her body. He then dipped his fingers into the cleft between her breasts, pressing lightly against the curved flesh as his lips ran over hers and he dove his hand through her thick mass of blonde hair. He found the front clasps of her bra and unhooked them, pushing aside the lacy cups and closing his hands gently over her breasts. Closed his fingers over the tightened tips, squeezing gently, hearing her softly gasp into his mouth.
     This would restore her sanity along with his. He would help her burn away the layers of frustration and unearth the emotions that have to be set free to survive and really breathe again. She could tell by his intensity and the body he's allowed to become unhinged that he needs this as much as she does. Two people caught in the trappings of civility and proper behavior breaking free while lost in nothing but pure grief; destroying those bonds of the so called right thing with the force of released desire that’s been pent up for far too long.
     Laura pulled his mouth down to hers again, nipping his lower lip then allowing his starving mouth to do the kissing. She hadn’t remembered being kissed so thoroughly in her life. As beautifully and as passionately, yes, but Sonny’s hand cupped her face for the purpose of keeping her still while he completely and sensually attacked her flushed lips and the surrounding, damp skin.
     When the both of them were finally naked, the contours of their bodies rose to meet each others, attacking the need of completion that would somehow push out the pain. His face travels up to devour her mouth again. Wet, hot silk sliding against her. Her lips already bruising underneath but it only made her cascade her lips back over his, caressing his tongue with her own, needing more and more of him the more and more he gave. His hands moved to cover her breasts, groping without finesse and in the grief she was neither surprised nor uninviting. To hell with everything having the “correct” way. Life had royally fucked her over and she thrived in the revelations of his need for her.
     She wondered if he was imagining her as Brenda and then realized she didn’t care. He was comforting her and she would comfort him. This wasn’t about anything but them both trying to feed of each other’s strength to survive this night. She welcomes the roughness and he buried his face against her breasts; sucking, licking, teasing until she fears the sensations alone will make her climax.
     She tries to touch him everywhere, to heal his soul. When he enters her at last she arches her back in absolute surrender; letting the pleasure break over her like sunlight. When he moves, it is with a solid desperation and he pins her arms above her head again. She gives him this control, his pain feels as deeply as mine.
     I feel the orgasm rising up, carrying with it all the appalling emotions I have felt these past days; rage, fear, loneliness, and the powerlessness that losing Luke, Stefan, and her sons has generated in her. This supreme loss has been a black cancer to her soul.
     When she climaxes, those emotions wash out of me in a screaming tide of anguish. Sonny feels it too and takes the ride with her; climaxing with the force of a hurricane. When he collapses she holds him close, covering his face with kisses, caressing his back, now it was she who was being the strong one, the one in need to take care of him. There are no words left to say now, no emotion that hasn't passed between them already. They kiss in acknowledgement for what has occurred and leave it at that.
     All aggression is gone now, and she is held by him in a gentle embrace.

Chapter 2

     She lie in his arms, his hands running along her skin as she rested her head against his heart. She had to tell him now.
      “Sonny I’m pregnant. I never got a chance to tell Luke, but you and I just made love, which brought me back to life and is giving me the strength to have this baby. I want you to be a part of her life. You don’t have to but whether you know it or not you are her father in a way because you saved her mother’s life. And because it’s a her, I’d like to name her after Brenda. Just to keep the tradition of her name beginning with an L I’d like her full name to be Lea Brenda Corinthos Spencer.”
      “Lea?” he said at how rare that name was. “Not Leah but Lea?”
      “Yeah, Lea. Like Tea. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything this soon.”
      “Laura you let me give you alcohol.”
     She sighed. “I needed it. My baby will be fine, I promise you that. As long as I don’t do it again, one night with alcohol this early won’t permanently damage her.”
     He said nothing and she hated what she’d said.
      “You don’t owe me anything Sonny, I love you for respecting me and giving me a chance to find some closure in this but you don’t have to do anything else for me.”
      “Well now that we’re here I…I can’t just let you go.”
     She looked up at him. “I won’t go anywhere if you don’t want me to.”

     She was holding the gun to her worst enemy. She couldn’t wait to pull the trigger.
      “You’ve hurt everyone I’ve ever loved.”
      “You’ve murdered everyone I’ve ever loved,” she said back, yet terrified. “Laura put the gun down.”
      “Oh you’d love that wouldn’t you? You’d love for me to be just weak enough that I couldn’t pull this trigger. Well guess what, Luke and I live on, I’m gonna have another baby, a baby you will never keep from me nor kill.”
      “I can give you back all you’ve lost,” Helena said in fear.
     Laura shook her head. “No, you can’t bring back the dead, and yes this time I know they’re dead. Luke died in my arms this time, and Lucky in Brenda’s. And then you cold-hearted bitch, you shot Brenda. And although I love my children first, nothing about any of these murders makes me hate you more than you murdering your own child.”
     Helena turned her face away.
      “Stefan was never meant to be mine.”
      “You’re right, he wasn’t. He was a beautiful soul you just ripped every chance you could. Tell me, was he Nikolas’s father?”
      “Do you know what it makes you to not know that yourself?”
      “Shut up and answer the question,” Laura demanded. “You owe me at least that.”
     Helena’s cold blue eyes met Laura’s.
      “Yes, of course. Any betrayal of Stavros must be eliminated.”
      “Stavros was weak and you know what’s funny is you believe he loved you, but he chose me over you…every time. So let that be your last thought. And I know my husband, my two sons, and Stefan will be right there to give you hell as soon as I pull this trigger. And beware of Brenda, she was a tough, smart, glamorous woman. Everything you never were. You’re bitter and sick and you hide behind the Cassadine name and think it means something because you are so hollow inside you need to feed off of it. Well now you feed off of nothing. The Cassadines are destroyed, ironically Stefan left a large chunk of it to me.”
     That got Helena’s attention.
      “Yes, and I’m not lying Helena, I don’t have to. Somehow I guess he knew your plot and still loved me enough to give me the control I never had. And I’m going to destroy the dynasty-“
      “Laura-“
      “Shut up! I’m going to destroy it and make it really mean something and you sit up there in Heaven and watch as you can do nothing but wish you’d never touched me or anyone I loved. You never mentioned to Stefan and Stavros or me that Alexis Davis was their sister. She has received the other piece, ironically. Apparently you not only weren’t enough for Stavros, but you weren’t enough for Mikkos. Goodbye Helena, until we meet again.”
      “Laura please, don’t! I beg of you-“
     Laura pulled the trigger and Helena’s blood was everywhere. Laura opened the door and Sonny came in.
      “Here,” she said, handing him the gun. “I have her blood on me and I’m glad. Thank you,” she whispered, then left Helena’s body, and left the pain and regrets with her.

      “Sonny please, hold my hand,” she cried.
      “I’m right here, push, one more push!” he said, kissing her face.
     Laura did and Bobbie Spencer delivered her niece, Lea Brenda Corinthos Spencer.
      “Is she all right?”
      “She’s fine, Laura,” Bobbie smiled as she cut the cord and cleaned the baby off before presenting her to her parents.
     Laura held the baby in her arms and kissed her tiny forehead.
      “Say hi to your Daddy,” Laura said, handing Sonny the baby.
     He held his daughter and kissed Laura’s forehead.
      “Thank you for giving me the most precious gift I could ever get. I have loved her since you told me she existed and now that I’m holding her all I want are more children.”
      “Ha!” Laura said, then laughed and leaned back, watching Sonny fall even more in love with his daughter than he already had been.

~The End~